


Therapy Cooking

by GingerLocks



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cooking Lessons, F/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:39:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8017933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerLocks/pseuds/GingerLocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky enrolls in a cooking class recommended to him by Sam. (Well Sam signs him up and he decides he's got nothing to lose by going.) </p><p>It's a therapy cooking class for people with PTSD, and the brunette that ordered Chinese food instead of cooking is rather intriguing. Her name is Darcy and she’s clever, and she doesn’t make a big deal out of his shoulder stump.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Therapy Cooking

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to [Devidlg](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Devidlg/pseuds/Devidlg) for feedback and conversation :)

Bucky enrolls in a cooking class recommended to him by Sam. Or rather Sam enrolls _James Roger Samson_ in a cooking class, and Bucky rolls his eyes at the stupid alias as Sam and Steve laugh.

He wonders at first how bad he is at cooking for Sam to do this, then he thinks maybe it's Sam's way of helping him adapt to life with one arm.

In the class he quickly finds out that there are loads of other PTSD sufferers, and this is not just a cooking class. It's a _therapy_ cooking class.

*

For the first class they all cook something simple, something they often make for their own dinners, that way the teacher, Mr. John, can see what level they’re at. Bucky is boiling something, while one man brought a frozen dinner and heats it up with an air of defeat. A brunette looks at Mr. Frozen Dinners with the utmost respect before she whips out her phone and orders Chinese food instead of cooking. Bucky, with the one arm he’s got left, manages to fuck up his food, and she shares her lo mein with him.

Her name is Darcy and she’s clever, and she doesn’t make a big deal out of his shoulder stump. She’s pretty too, and unlike the rest of the class, she isn’t gloomy nor serious, but vocal, chatting away with anyone and everyone.

She also doesn’t have any of the characteristics of a vet. She has a hard time following the simplest of orders, mouths back to Mr. John, and leaves a sloppy mess all over. The way she holds herself is also a dead giveaway. For a long while he thinks maybe she is a helper or assistant of some kind. Especially when she wordlessly helps him open the packet of chicken breast that slips away whenever he tries to carefully slice it open. Then again, Mr. John treats her like any of them, and she is horrible at cooking. He wonders if she suffered from the same type of PTSD that Sally does.

Sally doesn’t like being too close to anybody, and keeps her head down and stays quiet. Her left collarbone is a little wiggly-looking as if it’s been snapped a few times too many. Bucky makes a note to look up Sally's history to see what happen to the person who hurt her.

But Darcy is nothing like Sally. She has no problem edging around people, keeping close and flirting unabashed with everything and everyone. Even the Kitchen Aid machine she proclaimed was the sexiest piece of machinery in there. That had made a spark of the old Bucky Barnes want to come out, made him want to tell her ' _you think_ that _piece of machinery is sexy? Then you shoulda seen my arm doll. I still got some pieces back at my place, if you wanna come over and have a look...'_

So clearly she is either distancing herself from her trauma by acting like a civilian, or she _is_ a civilian. He’s leaning against the latter, studying everything about her to solve the enigma, until one of the other students dropped their hot casserole on the floor with a loud bang, and Darcy jumped into action. She took down the lady with the prosthetic leg and bodily covered her on the floor. The instinct with which she reacted and protected impressed Bucky, whose reaction had been to swipe the knife off the kitchen counter, crouch down, and glare at the student who kept apologizing over and over as everybody got up and brushed themselves off.

The man next to Bucky muttered something under his breath and Bucky let go of the knife and turned to help him up after he had launched himself out of his wheelchair and onto the floor for cover.

The only person who didn’t brush themselves off and awkwardly laugh about what happened was Sally; who looks terrified. It takes Mr. John fifteen minutes to calm her down and explain that it was just an accident and accidents go unpunished. Bucky knows he is right, in theory, but he feels a little more connected to Sally than he is comfortable with.

He doesn’t want to think about how Hydra trained and disciplined him. Treating his basic human needs like rewards, and dishing out punishments for the littlest things.  

His heart doesn’t start racing like he can hear Sally’s is, and he doesn’t stop breathing and make himself small because to him breaking something on accident was never an issue. No, for him it’s more terrifying to _talk_.

Revealing what you know, showing curiosity, expressing doubts; those were the worst things he could have done in the past 70 years. But for Sally, a broken dish was like a fuse, the thing that set her demons off and Bucky doesn’t blame her for wanting to sit the rest of the class out.

*****

“I went to the class.” He tells Sam at dinner that night when Steve offers him mashed potatoes.

“Yeah? How was it?” Sam asked, giving Bucky his full attention.

“It’s a class for people with PTSD, right? Vets and domestic abuse victims?”

Sam’s brow twitched in concern at his casual tone before answering, “yeah, there are a few classes, this one was for vets, like yourself. They let civilians attend too, if those classes are better for their schedules. There are more of them, and they all focus on one therapy or another. But essentially the goal is to rehab through socialisation and productivity. It teaches a skill you need pretty much every day, and the fact that you will see results at the end of every session, whether it’s personal growth or just mastering a new dish, is great for morale."

So that was why they made them do the dishes by hand. Bucky had wondered about that, eyeing the industrial dishwasher in the corner as his plates slipped all over the sink.

“Did you get any results that boosted your morale?” Steve asks, and the hopeful look on his face is almost heartbreaking.

Nodding to Steve, he passed the mashed potatoes onwards to Sam, not wanting to discuss it further.

The idea was great, though. Cook and eat and have other topics to discuss than the forced circle therapy he’d blown off in the past few months.

He'll stick with this class, he decides, and he refuses to think about the way Darcy had smiled when he'd burned his food and she'd offered her lo mein. 

*****

The class is twice a week. And for the next three classes he’s had an eye on both Sally and Darcy. Sally, because he wanted to know how she’d escaped, how she’d survived, how she was dealing with the nightmares and the odd moments of “is this just a dream? Am I still with them?” moments. He knows what happened with her, and her abuser is locked away for life.

And Darcy because she was different, complex and took up a big presence. There was something about her, not just her great looks and contagious laughter, that made his eyes linger. She was great with people and he could see she was caring, always helping whomever with whatever, and backing away when it was clear they wanted to master things on their own. She also latched onto him like white on rice, and whenever there was a pause in the constant babble coming from her, he’d catch her regarding him thoughtfully, and he’d puff his chest out, wanting her to find him as interesting as he found her.

She helps him out a lot. In the beginning it was little things, like literally being his left hand. And he helps her out in return, reminding her to check the oven, saving her food when she forgot about it in favour of getting Joseph to tell his life story, and clearing her station when she almost puts her elbow in tomato sauce for the third time. 

 

All the attendees are partnered up and every pai makes something different. At the end of the lesson, everything that was cooked that day is sent around and they all eat together. He's taken a serving of steak and is wondering how to best cut it when she wordlessly spids one of the bigger slices of meat with his own fork, holding it on his plate while her mouth continues going a mile a minute, her free hand gesturing all over the place, distracting the others from what she’s doing. He picks up his knife and hesitantly starts cutting up the meat she’s nailing to his plate into smaller pieces. She is still rambling on about a book she read and really disliked about vampires, and when he is done cutting the meat she gives him back his fork and doesn’t mention it. She only spares him a split second glance to gauge his reaction, before launching into a detailed description of a scene from the book. He’s grateful. Cutting something with a serrated blade is hard with one hand.

Then she’d started coming up with solutions, like cooking the pasta in a pot with a long handle, so that he could hold both that and the strainer in one hand, because he kept tipping the whole pot in the sink. She also gave him a rubber mat to place in the bottom of the sink so that the dishes would stay put as he scrubbed them. She admits she got it from a friend as a birthday gift, and the original purpose was to wash makeup brushes. She doesn't really use makeup brushes, so the silicone mat was just hanging in her bathroom.

"But I saw it and I thought, hey, James could totally use this so his washing up doesn't end up being another dramatic reenactment of the Kraken scene in Pirates of the Caribbean."

He doen't know the reference, but thinks its from a movie, but he does know what a kraken is, his former captives had used it as their emblem after all.

"It is a litte off though," he muses, "considering the kraken has at least eight arms and I don't even have two."

She doubles over in hysteric laughter as he awkwardly flaps his wrist like its a tentacle a few times, before smiling too.

The fact that she saw something and thought of him, makes him feel warm inside. He brings the mat home with him after class and puts it in his own sink, smiling ruefully at the contrast of the hot pink silicone and his otherwise boring chrome kitchen.

*

“It’s a nice mat,” Steve had commented as he and Bucky did the dishes.

“Thanks,” Bucky said, then hesitated for a second before slowly smirking and using one of Darcy’s favorite jokes; “It’s super _handy._ ”

Steve snorts, and Bucky just knows he’s beaming at Sam when Bucky turns back to the dishes. Steve's is obviously really happy that Sam’s classes are working, and Bucky can positively feel it in the energy rolling off his body.

*

He’s not the only vet in the class with a less-than-average amount body parts, Susan and Joseph have prosthetic legs, Stuart has a glass eye and Emma, who's nearly as loud as Darcy, whips out a rubber breast from her bra and proclaims to to have prosthetic boobs as the others in the prosthetic gang laugh.

 “What about you, James? You ever had a prosthetic?” Joseph asks at the end of the class.

He hesitates for a second, avoiding looking anyone in the eyes when he nods, “it was removed recently.” It's not a lie. Not per say. Tony had removed his arm over a year ago, but what’s a year to the century he’s been on this earth? It’s not like he’d been awake for most of it, and it was obvious he didn’t quite have a handle on how to operate with one arm yet.

“Please tell me you made Toy Story jokes!” Darcy exclaimed, then when he gave her a passive shrug, went into a dramatic retelling of this character Woody getting a plastic toy-space-man arm thrown at him. He snorted, imagining the look on Sam or Steve’s face had he done just that.

“I’ll be sure to do it with any upcoming prosthetic I get, doll.”

She barely batted an eye at the term of endearment, but Bucky'd noticed she stands a little bit closer, and lingers a little bit longer whenever she helps him hold things or pass him the utensils they share at their workstation.  

“Just date already, It’s not like you don’t already eat together twice a week.” He hears Emma mutter as she adjusts her breasts back into place.

“Just take out the breasts, Emma, it’s not like you don’t look beautiful and feminine without them.” Darcy fires back, but she didn’t contradict the accusation of there being a romantic dimension to their relationship.

Bucky is not sure how to feel about that.

*

“This meal was great,” Steve praised him, after scraping off the last of his food from his plate, “those cooking classes are really working out for you.”

Bucky smiles, mentally thanking Darcy for her help. She’d suggested he cook for Steve, she’d helped him pick out the dish that would require the least amount of left hand action, and she’d even walked with him from the class to the corner store and helped pick out which brands to get. He asked her where everything came from, and she’d looked at him with big eyes and made him clear his schedule on Saturday so she could take him to the farmers market.

Emma had been right, there was more between him and Darcy, and though it made Bucky’s stomach feel uneasy and made him overthink every word he said, it still gave him a warm feeling in his chest whenever she smiled at him. He felt like she was there for him, not just for cutting his meat, and helping him hold his bowl steady, but she listened too, and didn’t treat him like he was made of glass.

None of them did. They were all so tired of being treated like they were going to blow a fuse any second that they all focused their damnedest on being normal. Only Sally still needed work with that, and held herself back, but Darcy was amazing, talking her down and always leaving a space open for her whenever she backed away to take a break.

Bucky had never been bad at cooking, it was just more options now, wider variation of spices, cooking methods and appliances, he learned a lot at his classes, and a lot from Darcy.

But he knew the real reason Steve liked his glazed chicken breasts wasn’t because Bucky was a phenomenal cook. He didn’t mind though, and answered the stream of question from Steve, ending up telling him, in detail, how he'd made the dish.

In the end though, as he was doing his dishes on the pink silicone mat, shoulder to shoulder with Steve, he had to admit that it felt great to have control over something. Even if it was just how his meal was prepared.  

*

“Look at these _lemons_ , James!” Darcy marveled at a crate of lemons, already stuffing handfuls into a bag. Bucky looked up from the plums he was perusing, remembering his last day in Bucharest and trying to shake the lingering paranoia.

“I’m buying the whole crate, and I’m going to bring some to class and Mr. John is going to teach me how to make those amazing lemon tarts. You know, the tiny ones in the bakeries with the meringue on top.”  

Bucky smiles at her enthusiasm and finally shakes off his paranoia, reaching out for a bag and handing it over to Darcy’s waiting hand so she can hold it open as he loads it with plums.

“You just wanna use the the cooking torch,” he accuses.

“Well duh,” she rolls her eyes and elbows him in the ribs, “but lemon tarts are good without the meringue too…”

Bucky ends up carrying the crate of lemons on his hip, giving Darcy his wallet and trusting her to pick the best produce on his shopping list. It’s fun. Shopping with Darcy, more so in a place where they give out free samples and she feeds him the most remarkable and mysterious things.

He concludes that he wouldn’t mind spending more time with her like this, going on dates, actually pursuing her. So after they are done he insists on walking her home, carrying the lemon crate all the way up to her door and smiles at her when she kisses his cheek goodbye.

*

“I was good at dating, back in the day, wasn’t I?” He asks Steve one evening, while Steve is busy with his art homework.  

“Yeah,” Steve answers absentmindedly as he continues sketching, then the scritch-scratch of his pencil stills when the question registers in his mind.

“I mean yes. You dated, a lot. You weren't that original though, I remember Betty giving you that shiner with the solid right hook her brother taught her, once she realised you took her on the exact same date that you took her sister on the week before.”

Bucky frowned, “I didn’t really care much for those women, did I?”

“Well, sure you did. There were a coupla’ times where you really went sweet on a girl and took her out for other activities than the pictures or dancing… Then you’d get another bird in view a few weeks later and use the same new date idea for her. You always said why-”

“Why do something new when I know this way works good.” Bucky finished, smiling at his memory, then contemplating how he felt about that aspect of his old persona.  

The old Bucky Barnes had been a womanizer, fed up with one girl and easily moving on to the next. The idea didn’t quite sit right with him anymore. Sure he could remember having lots of fun, but he ached for permanence now, for stability rather than adventure. He’d had enough adventure for a lifetime.

“Any reason why you’re asking about your Casanova days?” Steve asked, waggling his eyebrows like Sam often does, though not as well executed as Sam.

“No reason,” Bucky shrugged, going back to his computer where he had three tabs open with different lemon tart recipes. “Just remembering is all.” 

He knew Steve didn’t quite believe him, but after a minute the same scritch-scratch of Steve’s pencil against paper started up again and Steve was back in his own world.

He contemplated everything Steve had told him about The Old Bucky and set it up against the way he felt now, and for the first time since breaking his programming, Bucky didn’t feel disappointed when he found another difference between him _now_ and him _then_. He felt something akin to acceptance, and before going to bed he took out his notebook and made the start of a list. Currently he only had a few things, but he’d be damned if he didn’t find enough to cover the whole damn book with time.

A list with what he was, a list of how he was different, how he was his own.

A list of The New Bucky, not The Old Bucky, not The Winter Soldier. But James Buchanan Barnes, sound of mind and in charge of his own life again.

And with a promise to himself, and a small mental pat on the back, he fell into a more restful sleep than he’d had since World War Two.

* 

In class it was clear that Darcy had not had as good a night as he had. She was pale, with dark circles under her eyes and a slight caffeine-induced quiver to her hands.

For the first time in the three months they’d had these classes, Bucky was the one who helped her cut the vegetables, squeezing her hand as he took over the knife.

“Thanks,” she murmured, not quite looking him in the eyes, and he paused his chopping until she met his gaze.  

“Bad dreams?”

“The worst,” she sighed, pealing another onion for him to chop, “I miss those good old days where nightmares meant going to school naked and never getting to your house to change no matter how fast you ran.”

He huffed a laughter, eyes slipping over her body for a split second as his mind involuntarily imagined her running naked. He resolutely looked back at the chopping board where the onion she’d just peeled and halved was lying ready for him, shaking the image.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Darcy was quiet for a moment, but Bucky knew she’d heard him, and gave her space to think about it.

“Not right now,” she answered much later, after all the onions and carrots were diced and in the pan. They had a few minutes before they had to start the next stage of their Shepherd's Pie.  

 Bucky steeled himself, before hesitantly reaching out and stroking his fingers over the back of her hand where it laid on the counter. Her big eyes looked up at him, first surprised that he’d been the one to initiate the contact.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks, smiling as she flips her hand over, intertwining her fingers with his.

Her eyes light up as the corner of her mouth tugs, “I was planning on taking out the batteries on my fire alarm and burn me some lemon tart.” She then nods her head to her purse where he saw her stash the cooking torch from their station at the beginning of class. She winks at him and he rolls his eyes.

“How about I come over and help you?”

"Help me?"

“Yeah, burn your apartment down.”

“Sure, if that’s what you’re into…” She trails of innocently, hand squeezing his.

“Yes, doll, burning is my kink, that’s why they put me on ice.” He laughs and Darcy freezes. It takes Bucky a second before he realizes what he’s said, and he tries to slip his hand away, but Darcy has it in a vice grip that he doesn’t want to break.

“The Winter Soldier.” Darcy states calmly. Bucky looks at her, searches her gaze but sees no fear.

“Not anymore,” he bites out, tearing his hand from her when she loosens her grip. His heart is hammering in his chest, and he catches Sally’s eyes over his shoulder when he looks away from Darcy.

“I know!” Darcy follows his gaze, blocking his sight of Sally and forcing him to look at her. “I mean I knew you were forced to be him by Hydra, I knew you used to be Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s sidekick, but I know you’re just James now. One armed, and not bad at cooking.”

He glances at the room at large, no one is looking at them, no one but Sally who looks like she wants to help, but doesn’t quite know how. He calms himself, lets his shoulders slump, if not just for Darcy then for Sally too, to let them know he’s okay.

“Does everybody know?” He asks her, and Darcy reaches for his hand again, he meets her halfway, sighing as she runs her thumb over the back of his hand.

“Not really. I mean, Emma has her speculations, but Joseph told her to mind her own business, nosey cow she is.” Darcy glares over his shoulder at the back of Emma’s head. “But it’s not like they care. We are all here for a reason; to gain control, get a handle on day to day life. They see you make the effort and it’s not like you’ve ever attacked us. And to be honest I think the fact that Sally can stand next to you without being jumpy says enough.”

 Darcy smiles softly and Bucky looks over at Sally, mirroring Darcy’s smile so she knows he’s fine.

“So, _Bucky,_  I would love to make lemon tart with you tomorrow. Be at my place at five,” she squeezes his hand one last time, before standing on her tiptoe to kiss his cheek, wiping off the lipstick stain with her thumb. 

“I’ll be there,” he promises, and thinks _fuck it_ , before he leans down to kiss her on the lips, winding his arm around her middle then up her back. Darcy doesn’t even need a moment, but fully welcomes him, wrapping herself around him and giving as good as she’s getting.  

“About damn time!” Emma shouts at them after Darcy has backed him into the counter, and Darcy breaks off the kiss to tell Emma where she can stick her nose.

“Not that it’s not great to see relationships blossom in my class, but your carrots are burning,” Mr. John comments casually, and Darcy regretfully lets go of him to salvage what she can. Bucky grins at her, face flushed at the public display of affection, and knowing Emma and Joseph are going to tease them until the end of this course. But he just can’t bring himself to care.

*

“Welcome, you must be Darcy, Bucky has told me so much about you!” Steve smiles and holds his arms out for the bottle of wine and Darcy’s coat.

“And you must be Steve, Bucky and Thor have told me loads about you too.” Darcy grins and hands over her coat and the wine to Steve, before turning to Bucky. “And you must be my boyfriend, I really missed you,” she smirks at him, and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“We had our last class not three hours ago,” he reminds her as she jumps him, wrapping her arms and legs around him and kissing his nose. He knows her quirks well enough by now that he already had his knees slightly bent so she could jump high enough, and his arm is on her ass before she sticks the landing. 

“Yeah, well, a lady can _miss her fellah_ several times in three hours,” she winks before kissing him enthusiastically, causing Bucky's knees to almost buckle imagining her _miss her fellah_.

“I’ll just open this bottle then,” Steve says unnecessarily loudly as he passes them in the hallway, and Bucky seriously considers just bringing Darcy into his bedroom and having his way with her before dinner.

“Sam will be here anytime,” Steve called a minute later, foiling his plans.

Bucky growls and breaks the kiss, setting Darcy back on the floor, and helping her fix her smudged lipstick, “spoilsport.”

“Killjoy,” Darcy agrees, fixing his hair, and then quickly rubbing her sleeve on his mouth to get the worst of her lipstick off him in return.

Steve laughs in the kitchen, and the doorbell rings before Bucky can tell him what a punk he is.

“Sam, I presume,” Darcy greets said man when she opens the door.

“Darcy Lewis,” Sam smiles back, “you’re the girl who’s kept Bucky too busy for poker night the past few weeks?”

“Nah, Darcy was the one who gave me the pink frilly apron...” Bucky shrugs, “the one keeping me busy was your mama.”

 

“Ha ha, so funny,” Sam rolls his eyes as Darcy laughs, “what’s for dinner?”

 “I don’t know, Steve’s making it.”

“After all these months of cooking classes?” Sam looked at the pair of them in disbelief.  

“Hey, I’m shit at cooking and Bucky’s only got the one arm,” Darcy shrugged before walking to the kitchen. 

“Hey, Sam?” Bucky called after him as he made to follow Darcy, stopping him in the doorway.

“Thank you.” Bucky smiled, looking over Sam’s shoulder at his girlfriend helping his best friend set the table. “I never would have had any of this without you.”

"You thankful enough to stop with the _yo-mama_ jokes?" Sam smiled.

"Never." 

*

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea about therapy and limited knowledge of PTSD. I am not pretending to know what I'm doing, so please let me know if I wrote something horribly wrong that needs correction!
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
> As always I am [foreverdrunkatheart](http://www.foreverdrunkatheart.tumblr.com) and [hannahsfandos](http://www.hannahsfandos.tumblr.com) on tumblr, come fangirl with me!


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